Ripple, Visa Join Rivals in Asia’s Digital Money Push

Key Takeaways

1Nine new participants, including Ripple and Visa

2Existing members include Coinbase, J.P. Morgan and DBS

3Three workstreams: acceptance, interoperability and programmable controls

4No launch date, corridors or XRP role announced

The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced the expansion on October 23, adding Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand as policymaker members of BLOOM.

Rivals at one table

Nine new participants join 16 existing members, whose ranks already included stablecoin issuers, crypto firms, global banks and payment companies.

Joining now

Crypto and payments: Ripple, Visa, Mastercard, Airwallex, Nium

Wallets: ShopeePay, Monee

Bank: Maybank

Multilateral: World Bank Group

Already in

Stablecoins and crypto: Circle, StraitsX, Coinbase, Anchorage Digital

Banks: DBS, J.P. Morgan, OCBC, UOB, Standard Chartered, Kasikornbank

Payments: Ant International, Stripe, Partior

Investors and others: Schroders, Temasek, Xweave

The roster puts competitors in the same room. Ripple, which issues the RLUSD stablecoin, now works alongside Circle, the issuer of USDC, and Visa joins at the same time as Mastercard. Each new member country also has a bank in the group: Maybank joins from Malaysia, while Thailand’s Kasikornbank was already a member. MAS says the World Bank Group adds experience in payment-system modernisation and the needs of developing economies.

A rulebook, not a network

BLOOM, short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency, is a public-private initiative to agree how different forms of digital money, including tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins, are accepted, exchanged and settled across institutions and borders. It applies international standards alongside each country’s own supervisory expectations, so local rules can still differ.

Acceptance and settlementWhich forms of digital money institutions accept, how counterparties contract, and how payments finally settle across markets. InteroperabilityThe technical and operational links that let different digital money arrangements work across networks and borders. Programmable controlsIdentity checks, sanctions screening and transaction controls built into digital money payments.

MAS says common implementation frameworks and aligned commercial and operating arrangements will reduce the need for institutions to strike separate deals with every counterparty or market, cutting implementation costs and time to market. It does not put a figure on either.

Malaysia sounds confident, Thailand careful

“Closer to a tangible reality than a far-fetched fantasy.”

Aznan bin Abdul Aziz, Deputy Governor, Bank Negara Malaysia

“Prudent, proportionate, and responsive to evolving risks.”

Daranee Saeju, Deputy Governor, Bank of Thailand

Malaysia’s deputy governor was describing frictionless cross-border payments using multiple forms of digital money. Thailand’s said BLOOM would help inform its regulatory approach to tokenized money, particularly for cross-border payments and wholesale settlement, and let the central bank carefully explore new technology while making sure its supervision keeps pace with emerging risks.

What a cross-border token payment already looks like

One existing member has already tested the idea between two banks. DBS said it completed a dollar payment with Citi’s New York office on Saturday, September 5, using tokenized deposits on Swift’s digital ledger. It took minutes, against an industry norm of up to two business days.

That DBS–Citi tokenized-dollar payment rested on terms the two banks agreed with each other, the kind of one-off arrangement BLOOM is meant to make less necessary.

READ MORE: Ethereum Pauses Glamsterdam Test – Some Contracts at Risk

What’s missing, and what to watch

The announcement sets no launch date, payment corridors, fees or volumes, and assigns no specific roles to Ripple, Visa or Mastercard. It does not mention XRP or Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin.

The first concrete signs will be the publication of BLOOM’s implementation frameworks, and a cross-border transaction between members in the three countries, such as a Malaysian or Thai bank accepting another member’s tokenized deposit or regulated stablecoin.

This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.

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